Ask Ars: Synchronizing Windows Mobile 2003 over the Internet

A reader says: What I'm wanting to do is synchronize with my home computer ( …

Adam Cerwall writes in with this week's Ask Ars question, which we're posing to you, the smartest readers in the world. I did a little digging on this issue, and it's not easy.

Corporate life has its ups and downs, and one of my ups is that I can get a nice, shiny bleeding edge PDA once every two years. I have a Windows Mobile 2003 iPaq, and it works great. It has built-in WiFi, and this works well (configuring it is a little backwards, but I digress). What I'm wanting to do is synchronize with my home computer (where I normally sync) when I'm out on the road. Right now I can sync in the cradle, I can sync with Bluetooth (man is it slow), but I cannot sync over the Internet. With older Pocket PCs, it was possible to edit the registry (or use Pocket Hosts) to add an IP address to your computer's host name, but this no longer works. I figure someone else who reads Ars must have figured this out.

For the record, it's not the firewall that is causing the problem. This is the only thing of which I am certain.

There you have it. In my digging, I did verify that Pocket Hosts does not work with PocketPC 2003/Windows Mobile, and something else of interest came up, namely that now Microsoft was selling a server for over-the-internet synchronization use, but that's was really only for Exchange users, and apparently has been discontinued.

Answered: First of all, you will require a working WiFi card or network connection. Until you have that, there?s nothing that can be done. Got that? Great!

Next, you need to set the WINS address to that of the host machine on which ActiveSync runs. If you have no firewall, this is the external IP of your machine. If you have a firewall that your computer sits behind, then your WINS address will need to be the address of your firewall.

How to do this is as follows; on your device, Start Menu > Settings > Connections Tab > Connections (icon) > Advanced > Network Card > Network Adapters. Now you should find your network card. Click on it. Under the Name Servers tab, put in the IP address of your machine. On the same screen where you originally selected your network adapter, you will probably need to change "My network card connects to:" from "The Internet" to "Work." This should not affect your internet access.

Also note that if you are behind a firewall, you will need to open up these ports, and you may have to forward them to your host machine. Additionally, you must enable your ActiveSync client to: ?Allow network (Ethernet) and Remote Access Service (RAS) server connection with this desktop computer.? This should do it.

Ken Fisher
Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation. Emailken@arstechnica.com//Twitter@kenfisher